NAAT Suspends Strike For Three Months

The National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT) has suspended its nationwide industrial action for three months.

The association’s National President, Ibeji Nwokoma, announced the suspension while speaking with reporters after the association’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja on Thursday.

Naija News reports that NAAT had embarked on the strike on 21 March 2022 to press home its demands which include the non-implementation of the FGN/NAAT 2009 agreement.

Other demands are the refusal to release enabling circular for the implementation of CONTISS 14 and 15 for academic technologists, and non-payment of the arrears of Earned Academic Allowances to members, among others.

Nwokoma said the association suspended the strike for three weeks after securing commitments on some of its demands from the Federal Government.

The NAAT President also disclosed that the association rejected the ‘No work, No pay’ policy of the Federal Government during their robust engagement.

He said: “Following this understanding with Government, NAAT as a democratic union directed all her branches to conduct a referendum on whether to suspend or continue the strike action. The National Executive Council of NAAT met and considered the results from branches today Thursday 25th August 2022.

“The result of the referendum from branches showed that 80.56% voted in favour of a suspension of the strike while 19.44% voted for the continuation of the strike action.

” Subsequently, NEC came to the conclusion that the demands of NAAT were substantially being addressed.
Consequent upon the above result, calls and appeals by well-meaning Nigerians, students, parents and other critical stakeholders, NEC in session, in the interest of the Nation unanimously resolved to suspend the ongoing strike action for three (3) months to enable the government to address all the issues at stake, effective from midnight of Friday, 26th August 2022.

“By this development, all NAAT members in tertiary institutions are directed to resume work with effect from the date stated above. NAAT, therefore requests that students especially final year project students/researchers with ongoing research activities and other unfinished practical works can come over and would be attended to.

“On the Federal Government of Nigeria’s position to invoke the No work, No pay rule, NAAT totally reject this in its entirety as we are not the architect of the prolonged strike action but rather FGN’s failure to address all the contending issues promptly. It should be noted that NAAT complied with all laid-down procedures before embarking on the industrial action.

“Therefore, NAAT demands in strong terms the payment of our withheld salaries without delay.

“It is important to state that at the expiration of the three months window period, NAAT will not hesitate to resume the suspended strike action without notice if all the issues agreed upon with the Honourable Minister of Education, on behalf of the government are not holistically addressed.”

This development comes days after the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of University and Allied Institutions (NASU) suspended their strike actions.